The “global battlefield” idea is a dangerous idea. It turns the
whole world into a killing zone. Obaaama’s drones can reach any target
in the world under the abstract umbrella of the “war on terror.” But,
Washington is defining political activists and social reformers as
combatants and terrorists, so this isn’t a war against terror. In
reality, it is a war against freedom.

Glenn Greenwald:

“If you go and look at the premises of George Bush and
Dick Cheney’s theory of executive power and counter-terrorism that
caused so much controversy among Democrats back when Republicans were
doing it, they were things like the entire world is now a battlefield.
It used to be the case that battlefields were very finite and
well-defined segments of real estate or territory in various countries.

And within a battlefield you can exercise all sorts of unconstrained
power. You can shoot people, when you find them you can take them and
give them a military commission and execute them on the spot.
Essentially, battlefields are law-free places. And so, that’s always
been the case, and that’s legitimately true, that’s not just a United
States doctrine.

So to declare the entire world a battlefield in the war on terror on
the theory that traditional battles no longer happen is to basically say
that the powers that I just described, that are unconstrained, that
used to be confined to very identifiable battlefields, now exists
without limits: they exist in the entire world.” [5:55 - 7:00 in the
video below].